Fact: States have multiple systems in place to update voter rolls and continually improve their accuracy.
All citizens must affirm they are eligible to vote in their state and jurisdiction before they are added to the voter rolls. Under federal law, a person registering for the first time must present an ID.
Federal and state law require election officials to maintain voter rolls and continually improve their accuracy. Federal law requires states to remove voters who have died, moved, or otherwise become ineligible. Election officials have various practices in place to do so, such as regularly cross-checking voter rolls with state and federal agencies and other sources that track deaths and changes of address. Those sources include the Social Security Administration, the post office, and court records. Keeping voter rolls up to date not only ensures that only eligible voters can vote but also allows election officials to communicate with voters and direct them to the correct voting location.
Even when rolls contain voters who are no longer eligible because they moved or passed away prior to the rolls being updated, there are additional steps in place to prevent these outdated or ineligible registrants from voting and bar others from casting ballots on their behalf.
Rumor: Voter rolls contain large numbers of ineligible voters who are illegally voting.
Voter rolls have received increased attention in recent years as conspiracy theorists have falsely claimed that inaccurate rolls have led to widespread fraud. Members of the public are generally unaware of the many procedures in place to update the rolls to continually improve their accuracy and the additional steps in place to prevent fraud. Bad actors are exploiting this education gap to spread false information and erode trust in our elections.
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We worked with Swayable, a research software platform that measures how effectively media content changes opinions, to determine what messages helped voters best understand the facts.
Suggested counter-messages based on our testing:
- There are additional steps in place to ensure ineligible voters cannot vote even if the voter rolls do contain an error. Updating the voter rolls is one of many steps election officials take to ensure all voters who cast ballots are eligible.
- Election officials regularly cross-check with the state and federal agencies that track deaths and changes of address to ensure that dead people and voters who have moved out of state cannot vote. Updating the voter rolls is one of many steps election officials take to ensure all voters who cast ballots are eligible.
The message above was found to be most effective in communicating the facts, though differences exist by region and demographic group. See Swayable’s dashboard to examine more detailed results, including other messages tested.
